


In the Dark House

by yhlee (etothey)



Category: Near Eastern Mythology
Genre: Chromatic Character, Chromatic Source, Dark Agenda Challenge, F/F, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 13:05:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etothey/pseuds/yhlee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ishtar's descent could have ended another way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Dark House

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Quillori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quillori/gifts).



> Yuletide Treat. Thanks to Sonya Taaffe for the beta. I have loved this myth ever since I learned of it; I hope I was able to do it justice.

In the fields green and growing, the bulls covered the cows. In the pastures, the donkeys sired foals upon the jennies. In the streets, the young men lay with sweet-faced girls when the sky was dark as wine, when the evening star shone roseate.

All these things came to Ishtar as her due. Hers were the couplings, the swollen bellies, the boughs heavy with fragrant fruit. Under her regard, the land prospered.

Yet Ishtar was not content. Night after night, from the dark house in the great city, she heard the laments of her sister Ereshkigal, queen of the underworld. Sweet was Ereshkigal's voice, like the mourning of birds. She sang of men forced to say farewell to their sweethearts, of women wrenched from their lovers' laps, of children torn untimely from their mothers.

Night after night, Ishtar heard her sister's voice. At last, after long thought, she rose and dressed: a bright crown on her head and rings in her ears, beads around her neck and pins at her breast, a girdle at her waist and bangles around her wrists and ankles. To the land of no returning she meant to go as a conqueror. All the living world fruited for her. Why not the underworld as well?

Upon the one-way road she set her foot. The world above trembled and the trees shook. The world below said to her, Go back, go back, but Ishtar would not heed the whispers. Step by step she approached, her bangles ringing.

The gate was barred before her and covered with dust. Ishtar raised her hand and said to the gatekeeper, "Open the gate or I will shatter it. All the doors of this house I will break down so that the dead come forth and devour the living. They will outnumber the living, and your queen need no longer weep."

The gatekeeper, knowing Ereshkigal's moods, spoke. "Lady, do not break the door! Wait here while I speak to Lady Ereshkigal."

Down into the lightless house he descended. The dead huddled back from him. Shrouded in feathers and nourished by dust and clay were the dead. They knew already to flinch from the message the gatekeeper bore.

Into the room where Ereshkigal dwelt came the gatekeeper. "Lady," he said, "the footsteps on the one-way road belonged to none other than your sister Ishtar. She arrays herself as though for war." He described Ishtar's bright crown, her girdle, the fierce and beautiful things she wore.

Ereshkigal went livid. "What," she said, "does my sister not content herself with the world above?"

"Lady," the gatekeeper said, "she has threatened to shatter the gates and free the dead of their suffering."

"Then she is a fool," Ereshkigal said. "Bid her come before me, as the ancient rites say. Perhaps the lioness of the evening sky will stay her hand."

The gatekeeper went up the stairs from the dark city until he stood before Ishtar again. "My lady Ereshkigal bids you welcome," he said. "You must follow me."

They traveled into the stifling darkness until they came to the first door. The gatekeeper turned to Ishtar and removed the great crown from her head. He cast it to the ground. In the world above, fruit fell from the trees.

"What treachery is this?" Ishtar said.

"It is the rite that my lady Ereshkigal has prescribed," the gatekeeper said. "Please: we have farther yet to go."

Ishtar glanced at the shining crown, but followed him through the door after a moment.

At the second door, the gatekeeper stripped the rings from Ishtar's ears. In the world above, seeds fell upon the unyielding earth.

"This is a poor welcome my sister has planned," Ishtar said.

"It is the rite that my lady Ereshkigal has prescribed," the gatekeeper said. And he led her onward.

At the third door, the gatekeeper removed the beads around Ishtar's neck. In the world above, the bees circled listlessly without pollinating any flowers.

"Does my sister think my power lies only in these trappings?" Ishtar said.

"It is the rite that my lady Ereshkigal has prescribed," the gatekeeper said. "There are more doors yet."

At the fourth door, the gatekeeper took away the pins at Ishtar's breast. In the world above, the plants withered and bowed down to the earth.

"You cannot stall me forever," Ishtar said. "I know there are only seven doors."

"And you are the eight-pointed star," the gatekeeper said. "One gate and seven doors. This descent is, and was, and ever will be. It is the rite that my lady Ereshkigal has prescribed. The fifth door awaits."

At the fifth door, the gatekeeper unfastened the girdle at Ishtar's waist. In the world above, the cows and jennies miscarried.

"If this carries on," Ishtar said, "I will have no choice but to free the dead to people the world above, for there will be nothing left otherwise."

"It is the way of things," the gatekeeper said. "It is the rite that my lady Ereshkigal has prescribed. You have not much farther to go."

At the sixth door, the gatekeeper pulled off the bangles from Ishtar's wrists and ankles. In the world above, the young men slept alone in their own rooms, and the young women remained in the company of their friends.

"What now?" Ishtar said. Unclothed, she was more beautiful than ever, dark-haired and fierce-eyed and burning-bright with splendor.

"It is the rite that my lady Ereshkigal has prescribed," said the gatekeeper. "You have not yet lost everything there is to lose."

At the seventh and final door, the gatekeeper took off the proud garment of Ishtar's body, so that she was no more and no less than a shining, terrible presence, more motion than form.

Thus unclothed of everything, Ishtar came before her sister Ereshkigal. Ereshkigal trembled, for even now Ishtar was fearsome.

"So this is your idea of a seduction," Ishtar said.

"I protect my own however I can," Ereshkigal said. "To you the dead may be nothing more than playthings, fit only to drink dust and eat clay, but to me they are my people."

"Oh, my sister," Ishtar said, "I am not here for the dead at all. I am here for you."

"You have none of your garments of conquest," Ereshkigal said.

"You forget," Ishtar said, "that there is more than one way to conquer. In disarming myself, I have made myself deadlier than ever." She caught up her sister in an embrace, a kiss red as pomegranates and sweet as honey. "I have heard your laments," she whispered into Ereshkigal's ears. "For this little space, mourn no more."

"You cannot stay forever," Ereshkigal said after a while, "or the world will no longer fruit."

"I will stay as long as they do not summon me back," Ishtar said, "and worship at the altar of your body."

Although the world above was barren of fruit or foal or child, although nothing coupled in the world above, for this little space Ishtar ruled in the great house in the dark city.


End file.
